


Just Bent

by KALLIOPH



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Kinda, TW: SERIOUS depression, TW: nondescript eating disorder, a story about love in its many forms, but ultimately a happy ending, this is definitely dark, tw: smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 04:21:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17481077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KALLIOPH/pseuds/KALLIOPH
Summary: Team 10 has suffered, and now that there's room to breathe again it all seems that much harder. Asuma, Shikaku, Inoichi: Ino feels like she can't stop losing people, and this new, utter inability to function as the person she once knew herself to be is only helping her drive away the people she cares about most. Worse, Shikamaru seems to be suffering the way.





	Just Bent

**Author's Note:**

> Hooo boy. So, this is dark. I began this about a year before I was diagnosed with my own depression, and it shows. I'm still proud of this story, but just know that if you're uncomfortable with depictions of depression that might hit close to home, I'd advise you click away.
> 
> I never felt satisfied with the end of the Asuma Dies Arc. It was too neat, and really only Shikamaru got any development out of it, so this continues to deal with that, along with the deaths of Inoichi and Shikaku (although I'm pretty sure I stopped reading before that. I know the gist, and I know that cannon wouldn't give me the emotional depth I want, so I wrote it myself). Perhaps I'm the only one, but I've always thought it seemed odd Ino became a healer. Her skill set didn't seem suited for it, nor her temperament. I thought that might compound with her guilt about her father and sensei as well. 
> 
> This can technically run concurrent with 'Shelter', but it doesn't have to.

Ino closes her tired eyes. The night is sticky-hot, despite the fact that it's mid October, and the stars are blocked by misty clouds. She feels like she is suffocating.

She undoes a few of the buttons on her shirt, not that it helps much.

The hospital is draining every bit of life she has left. War amputees, residual injuries and traumas, and worst of all, the hundreds of new diseases that are cropping up faster than the medical nin can hope to keep up with. It seems so futile, these sicknesses they can’t figure out are faster than the most experienced assassins, but unfortunately they are much messier, much more painful.

“It’s so hot,” Sakura notes flatly. Ino settles back against the hospital wall beside her.

“Yeah,” she agrees, pulling a small box out of her pocket.

“I can’t believe you picked up such a nasty habit,” Sakura wrinkles her nose.

“We can’t all be saints,” Ino says, defeated. She slips the cigarette between her lips, her nerves already relaxing at the promise. The lighter sparks as she flicks it open and, holding her breath, she waits for the flame to catch. “Sorry saving lives doesn’t do it for me.”

Sakura is quiet for a while. Ino can feel her gaze, but she decidedly does not care. “You’re different,” she says finally.

Ino closes her eyes again and pinches the bridge of her nose. Her headache is just starting to dissipate, she doesn’t need this, but she owes it to Sakura she supposes.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Why?”

“Why? I dunno. War, I guess. War changes everybody.”

Sakura nods. “When?”

Ino pauses, looks at Sakura, and realizes she doesn’t look like Sakura. Not like the girl she knew. “Always, I think. It’s not just me. We don’t really know each other anymore.”

Sakura is quiet again. She looks hurt, and despite herself, Ino does not like to be the cause of Sakura's pain, whether they're close or not. The broken green eyes, just as tired as her own, search her for a _but_ or a _yet_ or an _although_.

“It’s not meant to be mean,” Ino continues. “But I don’t think we do. Not anymore. I wouldn’t call you my best friend anymore.”

“Oh.” The way her voice waver, ending high almost makes it sound like a question.

Ino pauses, takes an extra long drag, then relinquishes the smoke into the night sky before lightly brushing Sakura’s hand with hers. “What we had was important,” Ino assures her. “It’s just not who we are anymore.”

“Sometimes I don’t feel that different.”

Ino shrugs, rolling the cigarette between her fingers. “You’ve got what you need.”

Sakura’s head whips around to Ino. “How can you—“

Ino kicks off the wall before Sakura can finish. “I need some sleep,” she says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She leaves Sakura looking lost and a little bit guilty, somewhere underneath, trudging down the half-repaired streets of Konoha. Each step hurts the hollows of her feet and her stomach rumbles. She knows she’s hungry but all her blood tells her it wants is tar and nicotine.

She stops to pick up a few bits of food she probably won’t touch tonight, and some more substantial sustenance for her last stop before home.

She knocks on Shikamaru’s door, but he doesn’t answer. Her heart suddenly leaps into her throat and her fingers tingle as she turns her key in the door. She lets out a smoky breath when she sees his bundled form breathing softly in his bed, relief kissing her chest.

She places the food on his table then leaves, silent.

He won’t thank her, and she doesn’t want him to, but she always brings him food anyway. He wouldn’t buy it himself otherwise.

She locks his door and drops the stub of her cigarette into the dusty earth before deciding she needs another one. By the time she’s home she regrets it, but not enough to put it out. It’s Shikamaru’s disgusting habit that she didn’t mean to catch, but managed to anyway and now she needs it like air to make it through the next day, the next hour.

She accidentally pulls out her key to his place first and it frustrates her that this isn’t the first time, and she can’t blame it entirely on her exhaustion. Regardless, she lets herself in to her empty little house and puts her food in her empty little kitchen, then sits beside her empty little bed as she finishes her cigarette, half draped outside her sliding bedroom door. Somehow the cloudy sky seems far less empty than her own home.

She finally retires when a few raindrops catch in her eyelashes.

She curls up under her thinnest sheet and tries to ignore the wetness of the humidity and her sweat-stale skin she’s too tired to wash. Blonde hair sticks to her neck and she’s vividly aware of how her own hair is the liveliest thing she’s felt in a long time.


End file.
